[Pkg-kbd-devel] Moving from console-tools to kbd [was: Bug#476097: kbd: Incorrect LSB init header]

[Michael Schutte]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 03:50:58PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Great, thanks. It seems you were too fast for me (at least for my updated 
> patch) ;-)
>
> Please also consider adding this:
[snip]

Already applied, too :-)

> Btw, I asked the maintainer of console-tools, Alastair McKinstry, about the 
> state of console-tools in Debian (lots of bug reports with patches, no 
> upload since a long time) and I'll be quoting the relevant parts here:
>
>> Yes, I've been very busy, and a co-maintainer would be a good idea.  The 
>> code is already in alioth.
>> More importantly, console-tools has no upstream developer, for several  
>> years now. kbd, which it intended to replace,
>> is in active development. Hence console-tools should be removed from  
>> Debian, but  a plan for replacement needs
>> to be tested (compare kbd to console-tools; look for patches to  
>> console-tools that should be ported back to kbd, either
>> features or bugfixes;  test upgrade scripts in Debian). kbd is a  'mostly' 
>> drop-in replacement, but has some binaries
>> not present in kbd at the moment.

> So it looks like, if Alaistair preferred, if console-tools was deprecated 
> in favor of kbd (after working out a migration plan).

Yes, I know about the status of console-tools.  A quote from #446030,
where Anton Zinoviev wrote:

> The transition from console-tools to kbd has been planned for years
> and the only reason of the delay is the chronic shortage of console
> maintainers in Debian.  It seems Alastair supports only console-tools
> and for the rest it is only me and Christian Perrier and we both are
> doing this only because nobody else does.

I have been added to the pkg-kbd team since then.

> Do you think this could be done for lenny? Do you think it should be done 
> at all? If so, would you be interested to look into that?

I think it has to be done sooner or later, if only because of lacking
upstream development in console-tools.  I don’t know if it is possible
to do this transition for Lenny, but having a brief look at it, it
should not be so hard:

fonty is the only package with a build-rdep on console-tools which
doesn’t allow kbd as an alternative choice.  It currently has an ITO and
would probably need an NMU to fix this.  And there are only three
packages with binary rdeps (or r-recommends) on console-tools only; they
are cmatrix, dynafont and freevo.

I’ll have a look at how much stuff there is in console-tools that we do
not have in kbd.  After fixing the four packages I listed above and
integrating possible patches, it should be safe to drop console-tools.

Comments are welcome.

Best regards,
-- 
Michael Schutte <m.schutte.jr at gmail.com>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 481 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-kbd-devel/attachments/20080414/5c4124d7/attachment.pgp